Malaysia Airports welcomed the resumption of various flight routes in March 2023 as travel demands continue to rise in the region. Among them, China Southern Airlines’ (CZ) resumed flight to Penang International Airport (PEN) from Guangzhou (CAN) and AirAsia’s (AK) resumed flight between Kota Kinabalu International Airport (BKI) and CAN. Ethiopian Airlines (ET) had also reinstated its KL International Airport (KUL) – Addis Ababa (ADD) route, Air Arabia (G9) Sharjah (SHJ) – KUL, Firefly (FY) PEN – Singapore (SIN), Shenzhen Airlines (ZH) Shenzhen (SZX) – KUL and AirAsia X (D7) KUL – Beijing (PEK) route. As for new local routes, MYAirline (Z9) began its service to Miri Airport (MYY) , Sibu Airport (SBW) and Tawau Airport (TWU) from KUL. These additional airlines and routes contributed to total passenger movements of 6.7 million for Malaysia in March 2023, a 15% increase from the preceding month.
According to Dato’ Iskandar Mizal Mahmood, Managing Director of Malaysia Airports, “We are expecting more new airlines to fly to Malaysia in the coming months. One of them, Indonesian low-cost carrier TransNusa Airlines, has recently made its debut international flight to KUL from Jakarta (CGK) this month. The airline initially serves only domestic routes in Indonesia. TransNusa is the 9th airline with operations between KUL and CGK, proving the route’s popularity and high demand.”
International and domestic passenger movements in Malaysia continued to grow steadily in March 2023, registering 3 million and 3.7 million passengers respectively. Both sectors showed an increase in passenger movements by more than 10% each when compared to February 2023. This healthy and consistent air travel growth is further attested by the March 2023 year-to-date (YTD) total passenger movements in Malaysia of 18.7 million, an increase of 125% from 8.3 million passengers during the same period in 2022.
At the Group level, Malaysia Airports recorded total passenger movements of 9.4 million for March 2023. Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (SAW) in Türkiye recorded total passenger movements of 2.8 million in March which was a 10% growth from the preceding month. International and domestic passenger movements registered 1.5 million and 1.3 million passengers respectively. The international sector made a more significant contribution to SAW with an increase of 10% in the airport’s total passenger movements for March when compared to February 2023.
